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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RatPunk" data-source="post: 1105154" data-attributes="member: 1246">Chapter 7 - Jackie and the Ogre, Part 2Most of what happened next was told to me later, since I was otherwise occupied at the time.It seems that my falling through the floor created such a racket that it alerted the orcs to our presence. Within a matter of seconds, the orcs came flooding out of the back of the keep into the courtyard. They came in two groups, one from a gap in the wall closest to the group (squad 1) and the other from a gap in the wall closest to the tower I was now in (squad 2). Since they were reacting with no idea of what had made the noise or where it had come from, the orcs were initially unaware of the group. Squad 1 spotted them quickly, but Squad 2 was on the far side of the courtyard. Jeb took advantage of that by using his innate gnomeness and throwing Dancing Lights at a building near Squad 2. They took the bait and stopped to check it out. Squad 1, however, raced into combat with the group.Squad 1 outnumbered the party by 2 to 1, but that didn’t deter my comrades from going all out. Rumblethorn and Corian began chucking spells and taking up defensive positions while Jackie and the wolf waded into the thick of battle. Peshal stayed toward the back in case anyone needed healing. The orcs had missed Jeb completely. He had been hiding in the shadows next to a building and they had gone past him without so much as a glance in his direction.Realizing that he would quickly get crushed in the onslaught, Jeb decided to take a quick jaunt to where the orcs had come from to see if he could locate the Crucible. Fortunately, he hesitated for just a second. Had he left his hiding place immediately, he would have come face to knee with an unexpected friend of the orcs. It was an ogre. And it had decided to come out and play.While all this was going on, I was struggling to break free of the spider webs. They were strong and pure physical strength hadn’t done me any good. To make matters worse, the spiders were beginning to move towards me. It was becoming imperative that I free one of my weapons. Valkyria was out of the question, since it was too long to draw in my restricted condition. It had to be the short sword. I struggled for what seemed like an eternity and was finally able to work the sword free of its scabbard. Not a moment too soon. The first spider came at me quickly. I swung the sword around and pierced it through the side. It slid off the blade and landed on the floor below with a wet thud. The other spider slowed a bit, allowing me time to take a whack at the webbing. It cut the strand, but didn’t go through. This was going to take awhile.Back in the courtyard, things were beginning to look more desperate. The group had done a pretty good job of taking out most of the orcs, with only the leader of Squad 1 (a particularly tough and nasty orc) and a couple of his buddies left. Squad 2, however, had finished checking out Jeb’s Dancing Lights and now raced across the courtyard to get in on the action. They had also split up, with some of them ascending the wall to come at the party from behind. And, of course, there was the ogre.The ogre had waded in and started swinging with his club. Peshal and the wolf were tied up with the orc leader. Rumblethorn and Corian were busy trying not to get hit by either the remaining orcs or the ogre. Jeb was several feet away trying to pepper the orcs with bolts from his crossbow. Jackie decided the ogre was up to him. He tumbled over and gave the ogre a couple of fists in the leg. That only seemed to piss the beast off, so Jackie tumbled away before he got smashed. He could see only one way out. He had to get face to face. He ran up the stairs to the top of the wall. The ogre followed him, just as Jackie had hoped. With a running jump, Jackie leapt onto the ogre’s shoulder.Jackie refused to discuss what happened next, but everyone else gave me explicit details. Since their stories were exactly the same, I’ve accepted them as the truth.When he landed, Jackie gave the ogre a quick fist to the nose, followed by another shot to the head. Then everyone, including the orcs, seemed to pause for a second to take in the sight before them. There stood Jackie on top of the ogre. He had one hand on top of its head as he slapped it repeatedly in the face with the other, all the while thrusting his hips forward and back, yelling, “Who’s your daddy?! Who’s your daddy?!” at the top of his lungs.I could hear the resulting silence from where I was. I only wish I could have seen it.The ogre recovered it’s composure and tried to swat at Jackie, but the little monk came to his senses and tumbled off of the creature’s head (a nice double somersault to the ground, from what I’m told). He then spun around, grabbed the back of the ogre’s knee with both hands and pulled in opposite directions. There was a sickening ripping and cracking noise as Jackie pulled the ogre’s kneecap out from behind. The mighty ogre crumpled to the ground, dead and humiliated by a halfling.Everyone was stunned by the spectacle that had just unfolded. The orcs, however, continued their attack, although undoubtedly with a newfound respect for Jackie. It was about this time that the second squad of orcs arrived on the scene. Peshal had run to the top of the wall to try and hold the gatehouse door against the orcs who had split off in an attempt to outflank the group. Jackie turned his attention to the leader of the squad that had just arrived, Jeb continued to fire bolts into the orcs and Brush ran to and fro getting bites in wherever she could. Rumblethorn and Corian, however, weren’t doing so well. They had done their best to avoid being hit, but they looked much the worse for wear. The arrival of the second squad did not bode well for them. In a brief fit of panic, Rumblethorn unleashed a spell.In the meantime, my efforts had started to pay off. In franticly flailing the short sword around, I had not only managed to off the other spider, but I had partially freed myself as well. With the spiders no longer distracting me, it only took a moment more for me to cut the last of the strands and drop to the floor. Now to see what all the commotion was outside…I threw open the door and stepped outside, both swords at the ready. The far end of the courtyard was covered in a thick fog from Rumblethorn’s Obscuring Mist spell and all I could make out were vague shapes near the edge. One of those shapes was very obviously Jackie. Another was the rather large orc he was paired up against. I started to head that way.Suddenly, I saw Jackie fall to the ground. I knew the orc hadn’t hit him, since it still held its axe over its head. Then I noticed that a couple of the other orcs near the edge of the mist had dropped suddenly as well. Rumblethorn had followed up his Mist with a Sleep spell. At a dead run, I reached Jackie in seconds. I slapped him lightly but firmly with the flat of Valkyria as I went by and blocked the orc’s axe swing with my short sword. The tap was enough to wake Jackie from his magical slumber and he leapt back to his feet.We squared off against the orc leader. He was big and tough and wielded a nasty double axe. He even launched into some kind of barbarian like rage, which made him almost unstoppable. Almost. Working together, Jackie and I managed to keep him off balance and, eventually, we brought him down. There was no time to rest. We split up and began moving from orc to orc, hacking, slashing, punching and kicking as we went.Then came the gurgling yell from Rumblethorn over by the wall. I worked my way towards him. The mist was starting to clear a bit and I could make out Rumblethorn’s body lying on the ground, with Corian standing wearily near by. Brush had reached the area before me and taken care of the orc that had dropped Rumblethorn. As I turned back to the remaining orcs, Peshal come running out of the fog. He knelt beside Rumblethorn, put his hands on him and a second latter Rumblethorn staggered to his feet. He was right. I guess some priests of Wee Jas weren’t all bad. But if Peshal was down here, who was guarding the gatehouse door? I sprinted for the stairs.I needn’t have worried. Jackie was already there. There were a couple of dead orcs on the other side of the door, and two more trying to get through. Again, Jackie and I hacked and punched away. Within moments, the door was secured once more. Another gurgling cry came from the courtyard, this time closer to the stairs. We raced back.It was Corian. By the time I reached the stairs, Brush had once again taken care of the offending orc and Rumblethorn was bandaging Corian’s wounds. I ran down the stairs and into the courtyard as Rumblethorn picked Corian up (as best he could) and headed towards the slime room.The mist had now dispersed enough for us to see reasonably well. Only a handful of orcs remained. Jeb had finally dropped his crossbow and waded in. Peshal was holding his own against his opponent, but wasn’t doing much damage in return. Jackie, Brush and I were doing reasonably well. Then came that now recognizable sound from behind us. Rumblethorn had fallen once again. It just wasn’t that boy’s day.Again, Brush took care of the orc and Peshal made with the healing. While he was there, he took care of Corian as well. Both of them struggled to their feet as Peshal and Brush stood guard. They needn’t have worried. The sounds of battle were dying off and the next thing I knew the fight was over. We looked around the courtyard at the extraordinary number of dead orcs, not to mention the ogre. They had outnumbered us almost four to one. Somehow, we had won.Jeb immediately began searching the bodies, while Jackie ran over to the ogre to claim anything of value as a trophy. The rest of us more or less collapsed where we were, exhausted from the fight. After a few minutes rest, Peshal and Rumblethorn laid what healing they still had on whoever needed it. We continued to be amazed at what we had just accomplished.Our reverie was interrupted by a creaking noise coming from the direction of the slime room. We struggled to our feet as best we could and prepared for whatever onslaught was about to come. A large figure stepped through the doorway. It was Pyro.“Hey guys! Did I miss anything?”</blockquote>

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